Well I am at it again with my most ambitious marathon
fundraiser to date!  I will run a marathon on 4 consecutive days at 4 Music Man Project branches with each run being followed by a fundraising concert by the regional MMP!

I will start each run at 9am from the MMP branch concert venue and then run 4 loops of 6.55 miles to make the 26.2 mile marathon distance. At the end of each marathon I will run (or stagger!) into the venue to start the concert. My aim is to raise at least £1,000 for each of the 4 Music Man Projects!

This is the Just Giving site for the 4th and final leg of the 4in4 and this will be for our original Southend MMP, so to provide some information about the group, I will now pass over to musical director and MMP founder David Stanley.

"The Music Man Project UK is an award-winning, world record-breaking music education service specifically for children and adults with learning disabilities. It was founded in September 2012 to meet a growing demand from parents for regular and accessible musical opportunities for their children. The Music Man Project accesses the innate musicality in everyone, regardless of their learning difficulty and provides education, enjoyment and performance through the teaching of original music at special schools, colleges, care homes, weekly music schools and daily adult classes in the community. The Music Man Project offers the same opportunities enjoyed by aspiring mainstream musicians by providing the best tuition, instruments, musical repertoire and performance platforms available. The Music Man Project currently operates in Essex, Suffolk, Sussex, Kent, London and South Africa with more regional centres planned for 2018.

The Music Man Project UK delivers inspirational performances which raise awareness and challenge
misconceptions, such as entertaining 39,000 runners at the London Marathon in 2016, closing Royal Mencap’s first national conference in Liverpool, performing in concert at the Royal College of Music and presenting two unique Sunday Nights at the London Palladium called ‘Music is Magic’. The most recent 2017 production played to a sellout audience of over 2000 people, including HRH the Countess of Wessex. It featured over 200 learning disabled musicians from across 4 counties, a Guinness World Record attempt and the world premiere of a new musical called “The Label”, based on the book by  Caroline White. The concert was featured on BBC1 Breakfast and helped Royal Mencap to celebrate their 70th anniversary and commemorate the life of the late Lord Brian Rix. 

Music Man Project has been shortlisted to the final of the Music Teachers Awards for Excellence twice in the last three years (Best SEN Resource category) and won the 2016 Kids Count Inspiration Best Creative Contribution Award. It has been described as tremendous by a Prime Minister and outstanding by OFSTED.

The Music Man Project supports doctoral research at the Royal College of Music into the effect of musical
participation on health and well-being for people with learning disabilities. The partnership, initiated through MMP Regional Director and Royal College PhD student, Natalie Bradford, included performances, workshops and undergraduate training to prepare the next generation of specialist music educators in this sector. 

The Music Man Project UK develops the musical instinct that lies within us all to instil confidence, self-esteem and as a vehicle for joy and emotional expression. Rather than focusing on their disability, all students are treated as musicians and Southend Mencap has only the highest aspirations for what can be achieved by everyone involved in this unique innovation. The musical outcomes are presented to the public in large-scale performances as a way of educating the wider society about what people with disabilities can do rather than what they need. "

So a big thank you to all for visiting my Southend MMP Just Giving page and for donating towards this rather ambitious fundraiser of mine!